Prior to the present invention, a non-pneumatic tire relied primarily on the durability and processing ability of the materials for tire durability and manufacturability, in order to attain the ride comfort, durability, and wear advantages of pneumatic tires. The overriding advantage of a pneumatic tire is the cushioning it provides. Previously no mechanical design for a non-pneumatic tire is reliable and rugged enough to withstand the rigors of normal operation when mounted on the wheel of an automobile. Prior non-pneumatic tire have relied on special materials to provide the durability expected from a pneumatic tire; or they have deemed shorter life acceptable trade off for the other advantages of the non-pneumatic tire. An advantage of a non-pneumatic tire is that they cannot go flat from lack of inflation pressure. The main disadvantage of the pneumatic tire is that, after being punctured, a deflated tire cannot run flat without damaging the tire. In the past, non-pneumatic tires have been routinely used on vehicles where cushioning the load is not a prime consideration. Even so, the use of non-pneumatic tires in such applications was less than satisfactory because prior art non-pneumatic tires had undesirable handling characteristics.
One attempt to correct this was to provide the non-pneumatic tire with supporting and cushioning members that deform and buckle during operation. Buckling is generally a behavior to be avoided in structural design for two reasons. First, the bi-modal stiffness, or bifurcated behavior, makes it difficult to predict the response for general loading. Second, the stresses, and strains, that suddenly appear at buckling tend to be much more severe than the strains prior to buckling.